4

4.

Malcom stumbled between the trees on soft, uneven boggy soil. Rotten foliage blended into the black, forestry peat here and there, and auburn pine needles littered the bases of some of the conifers.

The sky was a leaden grey, barely visible through the prickly and often bare tree tops.

Everything was soggy and wet. He was sodden as well. Mud sucked at his black, leather shoes, trying to grab hold of him with its clammy, volatile hands to pull him down into the soil and suffocate him.

Pools of still, clear water gathered in every direction surrounding him between the thick and thin miscellaneous trees reflecting the dark sky passively.

The dense wood was dark and desolate. Eerily silent and calm.

As he plodded through, the all-too vivid squelch and sucking off the heavy mud sickened him to the core. But that was not all.

There was a feeling. A deep, impregnable feeling that planted itself inside him and had been taking root for some time now, but had decided to blossom.

Something was lurking in there with him. No matter how many times he twisted his head to catch it, he could find nothing that followed him.

His new born anxiety widened a pit in his stomach like a crowbar. It did not help he had no idea where he was. There was no sense of direction, no way out. Just trees and trees and more trees- their trunks dark and slimy, the moss black on their bark like a repulsive sludge.

A crow cawed and startled him. It cawed again, from somewhere above, echoing throughout. No wind stirred. A faint, sickly stench of a dying animal roamed the area, and he plodded on to escape it. But it followed.

After a short time, he came to deduce it was most likely the stench of the wood. The trees looked withered or dying- their bark too dark to be natural, leaning in places as if reaching for the bare sunset on a winter’s eve, or slowly keeling over from whatever poisoned their roots.

It felt like a poisonous place.

 His senses were on high alert. Suddenly, he stopped and realised that dusk was closing in. The forest was growing darker, the trees morphing into hostile figures watching him struggle.

He quickened his pace, causing him to slip and trip a lot more frequently. The stumbling was harsh on his ankles that were cold and wet. His feet were heavy with peat.

Desperate to escape, he could find nothing but trees, bog and water. Fleetingly throwing his head around, a bolt of surprise struck his anxiety when he saw a tall, thin, hunched figure clad tightly in black creeping up alongside him a few rows of trees away.

He tripped and caught himself on a slimy, thin tree whose trunk was bare and black. Darting about, panting, he searched for the figure but saw nothing moving between the trees.

Panic knotted his stomach, quickened his heart. He pulled his hands away from the tree and grimaced as they were trapped in a thick, elastic string of a tar-like substance that coated the trees.

He pulled and pulled until it snapped and he fell back into a pool of boggy water with a yelp. He instantly had a fit of shivering, sitting upright with shock and then scrambling out of the shallow pool.

Arms outstretched, he shook and gaped about him in shock. Then he saw it again, the tall, slender hunched figure gliding through the trees wickedly.

He had never gone so cold inside. He retreated instantly, turning back and began to jog in his soggy clothes. Looking back, it glided alongside him just out of sight.

Its cranium was slightly elongated, one arm hooked forward and the other behind wielding something. Something long and snake-like and thick.

Radcliffe only caught glimpses at a time, for it lurked between the trees here and there, and with the darkness falling so rapidly it bore no distinct features.

It was a black phantom in some sort of tight, torn rags that moved in places. The head must have been bald or balding, for there was no hair, just the strange abominable head thrust forward with a hooked nose.

The way it glided was most unnatural, as was its height and the S shaped curve of its spine as it meandered in at the middle and curved back out like a scythe moon and hunched the thoracic region, morphing into the neck.

It was too surreal. Too frightening. His nerves were shot- shattered and impeded his escape. He did his best not to grab the trees, or trip.

He plodded into pools, desperately yelping and growling as he pushed through them.

Darkness was almost upon him, falling like a blanket and so was the figure. It grew closer, effortlessly.

He roared, tears welling in his eyes as he darted back constantly to learn how close or far it was from catching him. But he would never escape. It almost had him, its features never clear even just meters away from him.

What was trailing behind him? That bendy, black robe it held in its frail, skeletal hands?

He must not trip! He must not trip! The mud sucked. He cried out, it reached out, it was reaching for him with long, bony fingers of shadow-

 

He shot upright as the chamber door busted open and Sean the caretaker strode in carrying a silver tray of tea.

Radcliffe didn’t know where he was for a moment. One second he was smoking and staring across the garden below as grey light began to trickle across the night, bringing the dawn. The next he was slumped again in the other corner of the window, and sitting alert as the caretaker dropped the tray carelessly on the bed.

A silver pot of tea, one chipped porcelain cup and two plain biscuits that suspiciously looked like cork coasters. Radcliffe rubbed his eyes and glanced around. It was full daylight now.

Outside a heavy fog roamed the land, shrouding everything just beyond the house. He could see two tall black lamps on opposite sides of where the open gravel ended and where the driveway began, but nothing else.

Sean wheezed and spluttered, staring at him sourly as he crossed the room and opened the shutters, flooding the room with tasteless, grey light.

Malcom huddled himself and shivered. So tired. So groggy. His mind was heavy and unforgiving. Sleep deprivation had finally caught up with him.

As the caretaker approached him, Radcliffe observed his old, tattered boots caked in years of dried, brown mud and remembered the events from the night before.

He closed his eyes and hunched his shoulders so he would not shiver. His footsteps were worryingly lighter than those others. his boots tread no flakes of tried mud, and were so cracked and worn they even whistled small puffs of air from time to time.

Radcliffe was convinced that part of the man’s stench was his feet odour oozing out of them. He did smell rotten and sweaty. As sour as he looked.

‘The mist creeps, and the master sleeps’, Sean grumbled, picking up the poker from the carpet, examining it and then scowled at Radcliffe.

His voice was a prick in the writer’s skin. He stared back as resentfully as he could. ‘Could you at least knock, you country inbred’, he snarled.

The old man’s lips were moist with spittle. His eyes glowed dangerously, and his breathing was ragged and no doubt purposefully slow.

Radcliffe supressed a swallow. Had he crossed a line? Had anyone stood up to him beforehand? What was he thinking, the man had been living in solitude for the last twenty years since anyone spoke to him at all.

He had to remember there was nothing to fear about him, and no sense of fearing at all, for there was nothing Sean could take from him bar his beating heart. And he would let him take it if he so desired it.

However, in the moment he was still nervous and wary of him. He’s just a cantankerous old man. But what was that gut-wrenching feeling that came with his presence?

Oddly enough the corpse was even more grotesque in the cold light of day. His withered, unwashed face was a faint yellow, like a withered apple.

His sockets were sunken and black. Inside those glistening eyes were deep intent, a hollow soul resided somewhere amongst it. But also of intense insanity.

His lips writhed so softly it was almost unnoticeable, but they did, like pale, cracked worms impatiently.

He inspected the poker, and Radcliffe only then realised the stupidity of saying what he had said whilst the lunatic held a poker.

There was a tense pause as Radcliffe observed the man curl his bottom writhing lip and pinch the poker with a thick, gnarly thumb and a long finger, running them up and down it. his breathing became heavier.

Radcliffe just watched from his dull, tired eyes.

‘You look tired, Mr Radcliffe’, he rasped lowly, drooling spittle as he slurred. ‘You ought to be sleeping better. Sleep for a good, long while’, he growled and threw him a glance that made him tingle, tapping the poker off his filthy, open palm.

‘Would you like to sleep longer than you do, Mr Radcliffe? Go on, say it. Say the word, and I shall give you something to help you rest your little head’.

Radcliffe said nothing. Silence. Sean stared at him, head bowed over the poker gleaming in the daylight.

‘No? Then shut your English trap and keep your whining to yourself!’ He barked and threw the poker into the fireplace. Radcliffe flickered his eyelids as it bounced off the grate loudly, rolling on the marble and stopping at the floorboards.

He made himself face the caretaker as he stood with his hands twitching by his side, puffing raggedly.

‘Look at me, boy. Look!’

He was looking.

‘Do I look like some Black to you? Do I look a slave?’

Close enough, by the dirt of him. His insults were poor. Radcliffe’s mind must have been light years ahead of him.

‘I don’t serve no one. And I don’t serve no Tan. Waving your guns about our quiet towns like ye own the place’. He grew fiery, his fists clenching until they were white.

Spittle flew out of his mouth, and Radcliffe remained still and fixed on his face as he sat on the ledge.

‘You think I’m gonna stand here and watch as ye walk all over my fields and my home and kick me into the dirt? You think I’m gonna let you use my wife and eat my food? You let us starve, you did!’

He was wheezing frantically, eyes wide and furious, his crooked, yellow and brown teeth bared like a grizzly wolf. For a moment, he was standing like he was going to pummel him with one of those fists.

But he released them, licking his lips, and sneered,’ I smell the snivelling fear in you, lad. I see the petty city boy whose afraid of the dark. Are you afraid of me, boy?’

Radcliffe stood and threw him his most unyielding glare possible, clenching his teeth but not saying anything. He shook his head slowly, afraid he would say something stupid.

‘You’d want to be’, he rasped gravely. ‘Because I’m all that’s keeping you alive, Nancy boy’. He nodded to the tray on the bed. ‘Eat your breakfast. Supper will be served tonight in the living room’.

He turned and walked out the room, leaving the door open and wheezing as he disappeared down the hallway.

What an odd encounter. Radcliffe sighed and ran his hands through his crop of sandy hair, then dragged them down his face and scratched his short, un-kept auburn beard.

He wanted to quickly forget the fiery, unpredictable caretaker for now, though he must find a way to avoid him as much as possible, and keep his senses sharp so the man doesn’t throttle him off guard.

He shuffled over to the bed, feeling worthless and hollow, clouded and heavy. The chamber was depressing in daylight. The walls were grey and missing wallpaper, the bed curtains were faded and dusty.

The house’s character was bland, as opposed to how it was overwhelming at night only. No, in daylight it didn’t seem so bad at all. Just depressing and soul crushing.

Such was his temperament anyway. But there was no denying it was a different place now than it had been hours ago. As vast as it was it seemed a lot smaller too.

He felt safe, for now. He frowned at the tray as he took up a biscuit. This was his breakfast? It felt like a thin, brown rock. It suited the house, and all it stood for.

He sighed and flung it back onto the saucer with no appetite. He poured a cup of black tea instead, and sipped it, standing. The candles still burned.

They too appeared more grotesque and irksome in daylight. They were brown, and appeared to be a tall, cylindrical glossy mud-cake.

He blew them out, ungrateful for their stench and retrieved the poker, placing it back on the stand. At least I know where it is now, in case…

He turned to face the dismal hallway stretched out before him, sipping his tea. The only source of lighting came from the staircase, where a tall French window at the front blessed a ray of grey light onto the small patch of landing, leaving the rest dim but visible.

He shuddered, closing the door. He couldn’t face the hallway at all now, not even in dusty daylight. He wished so hard to forget the growl.

It was too real. His dream had been as equally frightening, equally as real. He wasn’t surprised he had had a nightmare following the demonic presence in the shadows.

He returned to the window and withdrew a cigarette, opening the other shutter and cracking the window open. The air was still and fresh, bathing him with more comfort than the atmosphere inside did.

He had never felt as truly trapped as he did at that moment. Surrounded by a plain of fog, confined to his own room after dark by the things that waited in the shadows, and the miserable caretaker always too close for his comfort.

A prison is where he would have ended up, had he not fled. But this was something else… this was a nightmare.

The hole was growing deeper, wider. He was shrinking into the hole, and now when he pictured himself in it the entire top half of his head had disappeared.

There was only his watery, black eyes staring up pleadingly, his jaw and chin hidden in the darkness. Had he given up trying to climb out?

It sure seemed so, for he remained perfectly still in the hole now, staring back up defeatedly, but always scared.

Flicking the butt out the window, he drew it back in with a yearning to get away from the house for a little while. Just to prove he wasn’t as trapped as he thought.

He fancied a walk, breaking through the boundaries of the fog so they were no longer a thick wall withholding him from the world.

He wanted to breath the freshest of the country air, not some damp, musty old death rattles the chamber breathed through his hair.

He ditched the dressing gown and opened the dead man’s wardrobe to put on his travel coat and a new pair of pants. The wooden writing box on its own high shelf caught his attention.

He considered it, wrapping a thin scarf around his neck. It would be a long time before its contents see the light of day again.

Malcom shut the large door behind him with a soft, echoing click. The constant quiet unnerved him irately as he paused to listen. Nowhere on earth was this quiet.

But it was a very quick pause before he made his way down, despising the idea of lingering for something to catch him. He could see the marks on the skirting where the carpet was ripped from the landing.

The floor creaked under its new inhabitant, but sounded like it did not welcome him. Nor did the icy draught or the brown doors staring at him facelessly as he passed.

He descended the old staircase groaning as he did, as good as unused and as fragile as a broken soul, under the light of the tall front window.

Wraight would be long gone, Radcliffe remembered. Despite what he had promised, he had certainly already cast the cursed house and its caretaker from his mind, and his friend in the process, putting as much distance between them eagerly, no doubt to restore his reputation and normality back home, and to wash his hands of the unpleasant, grave experience of the passing week.

It would be within his power to abandon his promises easily. Only Radcliffe could ever testify Wraight had been with him, and he was not a suspect at all.

If he chose, he could go back to his firm and pretend nothing had ever happened, letting last experience of misery in his lifetime slip into the river to wash into the sea, forever gone.

If you don’t come back for me, I’ll go back and throttle you, Wraight. What more, if I die here I’ll haunt you until your own miserable death. You are part of this too, don’t ever forget.

As he descended the last flight of steps he wished he had said that last night to the fat, aging man of thirty, just so it sat clearly on its conscience where it should.

At the bottom the draught did not blow as it did above. The lamps were cold, and all the doors were shut, hiding their dark secrets, without a doubt.

Crossing the hall, Radcliffe went for the first door only to find it securely locked and bolted, with a heavy padlock securing the handle of the deadbolt.

Of course, Sean had the key. That b*****d lunatic has locked me inside with him!

He turned, shoving his hands in his pockets to warm them up, staring around the hall. There were no large, grandiose clocks or little cabinets you might find in other stately homes, decorating the entrance halls.

No little tables with drawers where keys might be kept or tucked away, and time was non-existent. Only a small, round table where Sean’s heavy lantern sat.

He sighed, fed up, frustrated and weathered altogether. He’d forgotten he had signed his freedom away when he agreed to let Wraight drag him away from the scene.

Where did it all go wrong? Oh right…

Did he regret what he did? He did not know yet. He still didn’t know how he felt, other than drained and oppressed by his new eternity in hell.

There was a door passed the staircase on the right at the far wall. It caught his eye simply by being smaller than all the rest, though of the same wood and design.

From its situation, down the narrow passage passed the stairs, and the way it was hidden in a darker place than the rest, he guessed it might have been a servant’s door.

He approached it, passing two large doors on the right, and when he came to it, tried it and found it opened outwards.

He felt a stroke of genius, finding a dark, limestone stairs leading down into a much draughtier, icy darkness. He shivered, peering down.

It appeared to be a servant’s passage below, unlit. He hunched and took a few steps down, searching down the passage. It was lit around the middle by what could have been an open door or window on one side.

Glancing back, he pulled the door after him and immersed himself in the dank, dripping bleakness of the ground floor, curiously descending the small flight and stepping onto the smooth, flagstone floor with a clack of his shoes.

The passage was arched, low and thin. Perfect for small, female servants in the day, or for Sean. It was the perfect environment for him to skulk, Radcliffe imagined wryly.

Clack, clack, clack. Malcom’s own feet haunted his hears. He felt like some Georgian ghost-butler revisiting its former life.

He shouldn’t joke of ghosts and such things, he knew grimly. Not until he understood fully the nature of the happenings in the darkness. Or by wan firelight even, when he had been alone.

Several archways were cut into the un-plastered, red-bricked foundation walls like oval mouths of darkness. Cellars and old pantries, the writer deduced.

Encroaching the window of light on the left, an old pump room appeared on the right- a disused, brown water pump tapped into a covered well, supplying water for the entire house.

It made him think of a bath he was faintly wanting. He had not washed since he arrived. The draught was clearer down here, less musty and felt good breathing into his face.

He could see his breath blown away by it. The window of light had turned out to be an open doorway in the end. it was wide and square, the two thin, white double doors open inwards revealing the old kitchen.

Curious, Radcliffe entered. He had never seen an old kitchen in a lord’s house. It was even stranger to think he was related to this grand, arched room of decay.

It was tall and monumental. A mausoleum left to the rats, although thankfully he hadn’t seen any yet.

Two sets of windows sat high near the ceiling, shabby and unwashed for decades. There was nothing to be seen of outside but grey.

Their sills sloped sharply so there was no ledge at all. The pane was divided into diamond squares by an intricate frame, with squares of glass missing in odd places, causing the draught.

A fat chimney stood between the two windows leading down to the largest open fire in the house. Hooks and wide pots you could climb into and hide still hung in a shroud of cobwebs above the rusting grate.

The walls were once yellow, the paint still strung to the walls by webs but cracked everywhere. Pots and pans still resided on the shelves, ladles and other utensils hung from hooks above countertops.

The flagstone was worn by centuries of scuffing and scurrying. Radcliffe was not sure what exactly Sean claimed the servants had stolen before they left, nothing seemed to be missing from the house at all, but its life.

Eerily abandoned. The only living person in the depths of the house at that moment left the kitchen to its desolation and continued down the passage.

It grew darker and colder as he did, the empty archways threating to consume him any moment, yet he did not get that uncomfortable, wretching feeling he did when he was upstairs.

The darkness was more peaceful down here. The silence sat with him better. At the very end, he almost didn’t recognise the calcified, moist red-bricked end wall it was so dark.

Off the right there was another doorway, square this time, with another stone staircase leading up above. When he stepped through the threshold and gazed up, he could see a window far above in the side wall, lighting the way up from the second flight.

Another servant’s stairs that obviously led up to the first-floor rooms and the bedrooms also. It was like something from one of his books. He almost laughed.

He fantasised of mistresses sneaking up and down from the lord’s chamber, deviant servants carrying out wicked sins and other sneaky possibilities often associated with secret stairways.

He was about to walk back up the passage, having come to a dead end, until a wisp of light caught his eye opposite the staircase entrance.

He peered closer, and could see other hair-thin cracks of light break through the wall. There was a door there. He extended his hand and felt cool, gritty iron door in the wall.

Surprised, he felt along it until he found a bolt handle at waist height and tried to slide it back, but it wouldn’t budge.

It was not padlocked, but simply stiff from disuse. He stepped back. yes, a small, square iron backdoor that led outside.

This seemed to be his only way out, for now. He may as well try, with all this time on his hands.

He grabbed the same long thin handle that bolted the front door also with both hands, and heaved it back. Once, twice, and then it started to grind back with a dry screech.

He then applied the same method but twisted the handle as he pulled, and found it began to grind back slowly. The further it moved along, the easier it was to pull and twist.

At last, it shot back and Radcliffe wrung his hands, taking a step back. He moved in again and felt for any additional handles or locks.

There was another stiff latch he had to budge out of the catch with his elbow, and grunted when it did, rubbing his elbow. He shoved the door, it yielded.

He pulled it, and it yielded. The resistance was too strong, whatever was stopping it. it was just impossible. He gave it a small kick, frowning and about to turn away in defeat when he saw a large crack of daylight break through the bottom corner.

He kicked it again, lightly with his heel as the iron made a dull, ringing noise and he didn’t want it to travel. In case Sean had purposely locked him, to which there was no doubt.

And again. He could smell the fresh November air as it shoved open little by little. He could also see by now that it was jammed in dead, long stems of grass and a carpet of moss.

The door was clearing it back, revealing tiles of grey, rippled stone that once paved the exit. He threw his left shoulder at the door, shoving it more, and running it as far as he could budge it.

It was a quarter way open now, but the carpet of moss had ravelled and could be pushed no more. Other weeds and creeping ivy caught the door from above, making Radcliffe think he was lucky to get it open that far.

It was enough for him to squeeze out. Just as well, he thought. An open door would attract too much attention. He slipped out, and thrust his feet into the wet, long mounds of grass.

There was no handle for the door on the other side, so he had to carefully close it back, and left it, appearing to be shut.

There was a path there once, now overgrown in long grass. On both sides, there was a small grassy incline that was the surrounding hill.

As the path curved out from the house, the hill also sloped down to meet it, and it wound away into the moving fog.

He waded through the grass, his pants becoming rapidly saturated in dew. There was no sense in applying a delicate foot, seeing as the grass would get him anyway.

At the end of the path, the grass was shorter and bore the characteristics of a bare field in winter. Which was very much what the gardens had become.

Malcom inhaled the icy, dense fog in a sort of blissful way, delighted to be free of the house. Turning around, he did not expect to see what he did.

On the peak of the hill perched the old mansion, bare and open in a wasteland of fog.

Radcliffe’s senses prickled at the sinister façade. Although deep inside his conscience tried to call him out on that. For it wasn’t a façade. It was a haunted place, and possibly evil.

He was immersed in a story even he could not have conjured in his own head. But he was very familiar how haunted happening entailed, and was the least bit thrilled to experience them for himself, if that indeed was what all this business truly was.

The windows at the back were all shuttered as the ones at the front were. Ivy smothered the slates across the roof, crows nested in some of the chimneys and perched dominantly on the stacks.

Grey and desolate in the light of day, the house was fit for nothing but desolation and decay. He grimaced and had to look away, its sight both depressing him and filling him with an immortal dread.

If I find a tree to hang myself, I won’t have to go back. two bird with one stone. Freedom from his nightmare, and his inevitable suicide.

Ahead of him below flowed a large, rapid river that rose to its banks. Radcliffe spotted glimpses of its dark waters through the patches of fog.

He continued down the trail that lead from the backdoor, meandering alongside the river banks plotted by thin birch trees.

The gushing sounds of water soothed his ears and washed him over with calm. The other side of the river was unknown, but as he walked further on the soggy, grassy trail he entered a small copse of bare trees.

Suddenly, Radcliffe received a sharp, clear flashback of the dream he had had, and slowed down. He glanced around the trees hesitantly, spooking himself.

It was just a dream, he told himself. Writers have bad dreams all the time. It comes with the trade, often. Although, he never had a bad dream so surreal and vivid in his life, or a bad dream at all since he was a young boy.

Crows watched him from some of the high branches of the bare trees, silently, following him with their beady eyes. The track grew muddy, though he did not care for his shoes as he was distracted by his dream of the tall, slithering figure.

He had no idea what gave birth to the idea. The copse thickened, and when he looked around again he now saw he had entered a woodland that must have belonged to the estate.

He looked back and there was only trees and fog. The river still flowed beside him, keeping him company. Even out here, it was creepily silent.

No birds, no wind. No people. Nothing.

He always had to remember just how alone he was. If anything happened to him…

Great if I wish to throw myself in the river… No, there was easier ways to die. Although he had heard one night at some mad party from a fellow that there was an incredible sense of euphoria during the last moments of life under the crushing water.

After your lungs filled and you had already struggled. Hanging was no better or worse. Suffocating for anything up to a quarter of an hour, shitting yourself as the crows picked at your eyes.

There is no easy way about it, Malcom, friend. You need to do it, or you will die some other way here.

The old walking trail must have been used by the people of the estate once, most likely for hunting or just walking. Ireland was supposedly known for its population of Red Deer and Game.

He walked steadily on ahead, sure he wouldn’t get lost by staying on the trail until a stone, humpbacked bridge appeared out of the fog, crossing the river.

The old walls of the bridge arched away from its entrance and continued as low walls at the bank until they crumbled away in a matter of feet.

This suggested at one time the low stone wall may have run along the entire bank, right up to the house and beyond. Now there was only the bridge leading into more fog.

When he reached it, he stopped and observed. Dare he cross it? Curiosity nagged at him, but he didn’t fancy getting lost. He was unsure of the strange land, unsure of the silence and he had read far too many tales to trust the fog.

And that is what he must do, if he is to cross. There was no telling what time it was either, but he might as well have lost the best part of the day.

Then again, as long as it was light it was too soon to return to his damp confines. Hands thrust in his pockets, he crossed the muddy humpbacked bridge, breaking through the grey fog.

The mud thickened, and began to suck at his shoes. He stopped and inspected them. They were already ruined. He cursed to himself, scoffing.

His ankles and shoes were doused in thick, black, wet peat, as were the bottom legs of his grey trousers.

Before he continued on, he shuddered, remembering the mud sucking at his feet in the dream. He was even wearing the same shoes. At the same pants. The way the mud destroyed him, was exactly the same.

No, fool! It was just a dream. Your imagination is running away with you. Contain it, lest you go mad with that other man!

He let the dream slide for now as best he could, looking down at the high river passing below, listening to its soothing sound.

The whites of its current cutting through rocks and churning over itself made it look more malicious and cold- like it would cut through you if you fell into its depths.

There was no peace in drowning, or suicide.

There is no peace in life, his subconscious argued darkly. He sighed as declined the other side, the mud steadying his footing as it sucked at his shoes.

He grew sick of his own lonely thoughts quicker than he had anticipated. Sean had been right.

Over the bridge the same walls crumbled away at the tree-lined bank, and the path continued straight ahead, cutting through a thick, tall forest of pine.

Oak trees poked their bare branches through here and there, fighting with the other trees for space. Was he even in the estate anymore?

He tried not to let his mind wander back to the scene of his nightmare, or let his subconscious taunt him over it.

Of course, he did grow a little pale at how sinis- how similar it was. He walked up the path, slowly. There was a steady slope going up the path.

The mud and peat mixture became just peat, soft and wet and trapped the legs by suffocating the feet if they stepped in it deep enough.

He confined himself to the path’s edges where it was more solid, though not much more.

The path was wide enough for two people, and though no one might have been here for a long time, it was cut up as if a hoard of animals had trampled through recently.

It was naturally uneven and dangerous. But as uncertain as he was, Radcliffe’s curiosity was too strong to stay away from it.

His feet were cold and sodden, and the chill spread up through him. But if he were to be cold at all, he thought it better to be outside at least, where he could move.

From what he could see, the vast copse of trees held a disturbing turbid darkness as they did in his dream. He would have never believed such a scene existed, yet there it was in the fog.

The trunks themselves were black, but only because they were hidden from the light, he hoped. For a split second, he pictured the tall, lurking shadow glide alongside him with its crooked arms and hunched back, its skeletal frame and black tatters.

He stopped and shook his head violently, looking back into the trees to calm himself, because of course, there was nothing truly there.

The squelching was particularly off-putting for the London man. He wasn’t sure just how much mud he could tread though without becoming entirely disgusted.

It was clammier than anything, like a severed arm still clutching him stiffly as he pulled free. The woodland was built on some bog, and he wasn’t sure how far into it he could go without getting into trouble.

But the track climbed the slope relentlessly. However much he berated himself each time, a fresh pang of anxiety hit him when he saw the pools of dark water collected in hollows inside the tree cover.

His brow began to sweat, and he noticed it was getting darker. He considered going back. They grey closed in behind him, ensnared him from all directions.

His senses were spooked. Radcliffe slipped and almost fell, jumping a particularly bad patch to avoid getting stuck. The track and peat was getting worse.

The ground was becoming softer, and pools began to invade the path and gather more frequently as the slope declined. He plonked right into a soppy hole, almost up to his left knee, and grunted as he yanked it back out, reclaiming his foot and his shoe, luckily.

He’d had enough. Time to turn back. There was nothing of interest in this desolate place anyhow. He couldn’t deny the foolishness of coming in there dressed so normally.

He only had the one pair of shoes. It began to frustrate him now, that he had to return in the same, soggy shoes and trousers.

The damp weighed them down as if a severed arm really was attached to them. He cursed loudly, losing his footing worse on the way back than when he had first come.

He stopped altogether, and removed his cigarettes and matches with a temper, tense with the cold. When he was trying to strike his match, he heard something in the trees behind him.

He froze, looking up, and turned around. Silence, and nothing to be seen. But before he could turn back around, he heard it again- a creaking in the trees, possibly.

It was some sort of creaking or groan, he thought, although he couldn’t be sure. His heartbeat began to rose. The sound was loud and high pitched. Although trees were known to creak, there was no wind, and it sounded almost human.

There was no one there. He searched and searched, half expecting to see the slender black phantom, but there was nothing in the fog.

He put away the cigarette for now, deciding to double back quickly. The sky was turning leaden, and if he didn’t get out soon he would become lost.

But however fast he plodded and stumbled, he couldn’t get away fast enough. He started to feel a louring presence. A sense of dread fell over him, exactly as it had the night before on the landing.

His breath rose and fell quickly. He dropped his cigarette but clutched the matches for dear life, crushing the box.

He had to check back, twice, just to be sure nothing was on his heels. Gratefully, there was nothing, but he could feel something watching him, preying him.

Darkness was falling unnaturally swift, and the forest took a different shape than it had when he arrived. It breathed an atmosphere most opaque.

Something tickled his ear, and he slapped it. It ticked again, like a spider’s web he had caught, but it slithered into his ear in the form of a crowd of thin, watery whispers.

He yelped and slipped, catching himself off a prickly branch and clung onto it for a moment. Terrified, he darted his eyes in all directions, but could see nothing but the blackened tree trunks and the cloudy fog growing darker and darker.

He had to pause because he thought he had mistaken the tickle in his ears. But they were whispers. Whispers coming from all directions from different, childlike voices.

His skin crawled, and he felt the blood drain from his body. What is happening?!

He scrambled and hopped a meter of sludge, plodding through the track desperately like in his dream. The whispers seemed to come from within the trees themselves, echoing through the air.

His pants were now entirely soaked with blotches of peat kicked up by his scrambling. The whispers were closing in, nearer and nearer, so close it was as if an orchestra of children were whispering incoherently over him as he slept.

His eyes watered, heart palpitated. He jumped over more pools and peat and was still nowhere near the bridge. Whatever hunted him could have him. Put him out of his misery, for he could not take this anymore.

This was insanity- unbearable! He splashed, soaked through with panic and fear as much as water and mud.

He saw something lumpy form just ahead. The bridge, yes! He practically flung himself at it, but on approaching it the whispers morphed into the guttural growl from the night before.

It rose in volume and thickness, transforming into a heavy fry scream filling his ears with a strange echo. Radcliffe threw a final glance back before he had cleared the bridge, but there was nothing but blurry twilight.

Once he had cleared the bridge and bounded down the other side, it stopped. The echo still rang through his ears and all over the forest, he thought.

But the growl was cut off, and when the echo faded, there was only the wet sounds of him bounding through the hardwood trees on the other side, panting with faint whimpers.

Tears rolled down his cheeks, the air stinging his eyes. Everything was a shadow. He began to slow, breathless with a burning in his lungs. He stopped and leaned on his knees, coughing chestily.

He thought he could be sick, but stifled it, and eased his coughing.

His knees were buckling, hands blue and shaking. Well into the forest on the other side, he had missed the turn off for the house, and had kept aimlessly running forward once he was over the bridge.

‘God’, he panted, trying to keep his vision. Full dark was finally closing in, and he was stuck in the woods. The house was to his right though, he was certain.

Though if he had run too far, he may not come to it if he went in that direction. He could chance upon the driveway, but in this fog, it was impossible to tell which direction was which, and if the path he’d been bounding down had even run straight from the bridge.

‘F**k!’ He shouted, echoing into the darkness. 

Lost of all sense of direction, he decided to go right, southwards of the path, he hoped. Going straight was no good, as it would just lead him into the bog.

With no path, he had only the trees to guide him. He could barely make out anything, and the only sounds to be heard were his wet, squelching feet through the mud.

He almost cried. He just wanted to get out of there before the whispers found him again, along with their presence.

The copse was too thick for his liking. Surely, he would have come across the driveway by now, or something. But nothing. He would have to spend the night out here and freeze to death, slumped against an oak tree.

His teeth began to shatter, he could feel his nose blocking. He huddled himself, ignoring his numb, soaked leg. He heard something suddenly- like the rasp of a knife leaving its sheath. He stopped.

It came from his left. Malcom searched for the sound but saw nothing only the thick, full dark. He followed the sound a bit, wincing as he crunched on a fallen branch, half tripping over it.

Creeping amongst the ghostly shadows as best as he could, he brushed some branches of a conifer out of his way then, and behind them was a small clearing of outbuildings.

They were like little farmhouses, with slated roofs and an overgrown yard around them. There was no smoke or fire glows, however.

Radcliffe wondered what they were, observing them from the trees. They emanated too many unsettling feelings, however, waving in and out of the fog.

Besides, he was sure he had heard the rasp of a knife. As if that was possible… who would be out here in the dark?

No. I’m not going in.

Biting his tongue, going against his subconscious he could not help but let his creative curiosity get the better of him. He stepped into the open space, treading softly through the wet, long tufts of grass with a light ruffle.

He followed the first building around to an open yard at the front, which all the stony buildings faced. He couldn’t tell how many there were- perhaps three, or four small ones gathered around, with a cart way leading out on the other side.

Radcliffe’s heart beat solemnly, but loud. His senses were jumpy and strictly alert. He wasn’t sure of what to expect, standing on the edge of the courtyard staring at the ghost village.

I am just another shadow among them. The forest enclosed the little outbuildings that must have belonged to the estate, he reckoned, which meant if he was to be stuck here, at least there was the option of some shelter.

But he couldn’t be far from the house if there were outbuildings. He proceeded into the courtyard with this familiar tension in his neck.

He was so numb. If there was hay in any of these buildings, it would be a deal breaker. The ground was bedded with grass and weeds.

Various tall flower stalks dead with winter slanted in some places. Two of the buildings either side of him were stables, he saw.

The faces of the buildings were open and slotted with empty stalls. The abandoned axle of a trap or coach slumped in his way and he strode around it.

There was nothing more solemn or spooky than this place. It actually looked like it had accepted its abandonment, and that it would be used no more.

It reminded Radcliffe of himself; abandoned and no longer of any use to anyone. Lifeless, crumbling apart and suffering in the darkness, battling with ghosts from another era.

He jumped at the sound of a large exhale, like that from a horse! He darted around, ready to flee, but heard shuffling in one of the stables- the sound of straw and an animal’s unrest.

Doubling back, he retreated slowly towards the stalls until he came right to the old, battered doors withered with mildew.

One of the stalls was not so empty. Peering into the darkness, he could smell the animal strongly, with the sweet smell of straw and barley nuts.

He couldn’t see anything for a minute, but waited as he heard movement in one of the middle stalls. The head of a stout donkey moved along towards the door.

Radcliffe eased his tension, and approached the door. The animal was smaller than the door, and so he had to grab the top and peer over it to see it.

It was an old, well used donkey, he could tell as it dourly observed him and its surroundings.

Radcliffe could feel a grin creep into his lips, but he did not smile. He reached his hand in, and held his palms flat to see how it would react.

It didn’t react at all, simply standing there swiping its tail left and right. This must have been Sean’s donkey, the one he was telling them about last night.

He wasn’t far from the house after all. The donkey gave him a small comfort. All alone out here, it was a comfort he had happened upon the donkey at least for some company.

Another sharp, grating rasp slithered through his left ear, making him shiver all over and look directly at the last building at the end.

It was thick and square, unlike the rest. Radcliffe swallowed and stared, drawing away from the donkey and the stables across the courtyard slowly.

He could hear something else, faintly. A wet, trickling sound coming from the stocky, black doorway. He wanted to stop, yet he yearned to know what the hell else was lurking the woods.

He knew he was approaching something else other worldly. If only he could stop himself. He knew he would be horrified and driven away screaming by whatever tortured soul or deity resided within.

Even if it could not physically hurt him, he must live in a house how many feet away from where the entity resided, and live knowing that it did, and how it looked, and what it sounded like.

He stopped just yards from the threshold. In the pitch black inside there were the sounds of dissembling body parts, there could be no doubt. The tear of ligament and flesh from bone and the wet sounds of bloody limbs.

There were so screams or any human sounds, thankfully, but Radcliffe’s mouth hung open wide enough to step into, and his eyes watered fearfully.

The only human sound amongst the ripping and moist wriggling was a vague raspy sound of ragged breathing. This caught him, and was the final factor that lead the writer to the door.

Inside, a small man was pulling out the entrails from a ewe strung by it rear legs from the rafters above, swinging outstretched a foot off the floor, in the light of a candle lantern.

A pale Radcliffe stared at the blood running down a shallow gutter and out the door around his feet. Once he had ripped the organs out, Sean the caretaker turned and dumped them in a large pail behind him, then took up a heavy cleaver before staring at Malcom, his chest rising and falling manically.

The way the blood gleamed on his long, leather apron under the flickering lamp light turned the Englishman into a statue. His eyes glistened dementedly, white hair spattered with blood from when he had run a sharp knife down the torso of the ewe and spilled its guts and stuck out manically.

The shadows accumulating in the crannies and curves of his wide ears revealed every little lump and grotesque misshapen feature. His mouth was tightly shut and his face dirty and beaded with sweat.

He was in his element, right where he stood. The cleaver was unused as of yet, and remained dull by his side. His grubby hands were slimy with blood and clots of dark blood.

‘What’s wrong, boy? Never seen the carcass of a sheep before?’ Was the first, raspy, grave question the small, old man had for him.

Radcliffe instantly disliked his tone. It wielded more danger than ever before. Remembering the incident with the poker that very morning, Malcom only then realised he should have sprinted from the scene the moment he saw him.

But he went so cold inside he became rigid, and he was still too rigid to move or speak. Sean watched him, twitching the hand holding the cleaver in a spasm.

Something about Malcom just pushed his buttons in a certain way.

‘How did you get out?’ He almost whispered. Radcliffe felt his mouth was incredibly dry. Too dry to speak.

‘I only meant, I locked the door. I would have expected you to ask me for a key if you wanted to wander’, he corrected himself, not any less grim.

‘It would be curtesy’, he continued, ‘to inform me if you are leaving the house. Especially when it grows dark. This forest is vast, and if you were to get lost, no one would ever find you again’.

There it was again, that slow slur and almost hint in his low, gritty voice that made Malcom writhe inside.

‘Come now, laddie’, he smirked wickedly with a c**k of his head, ‘you gave me the impression you weren’t frightened so easy, and now you’ve gone and pissed your panties’.

He hadn’t, actually. It would’ve been a warm and welcome feeling trickling down his leg, he was confident.

‘I would’ve thought this would tickle your fancy, you being so well used to murder’, he gestured at the ewe with the cleaver, smiling twistedly, revealing his rotting teeth.

‘What?’ Radcliffe whispered, a bolt of shock forking into his core.

‘That’s what you are, is it not?’ Sean replied gravely again, with another c**k of his head. Malcom had no words to say, staring in horror.

Sean rose the cleaver, and said, ‘one of those Nancy boys who write about murder, or people who have been murdered’. He grunted and shook his head. ‘Wraight said you were, maybe I misheard him’.

Radcliffe didn’t believe him for a second. His voice was too sly and taunting. You crazy old b*****d. He was as idiotic as he was senile and disconcerted.

Radcliffe frowned, suddenly insulted. ‘No, I write fiction, but not that, not…’ He swallowed, looking at the dripping ewe, its glassy, lifeless eyes staring back at him.

The caretaker eyed him up and down. ‘You’re soaked. You been in the bog?’

And what parts of this forest wasn’t bog? He threw the cleaver into the wooden workbench he had been using as a counter and took his heavy lantern in his bloody grasp.

‘Come on, I’ll bring you back. This can wait till later’.